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User blog:MississippiSue/In appreciation of The Travelers
One of the highlight episodes in Cheyenne Season One for me is the tight ensemble story titled The Travelers. True to several scripts in the series, this story was originally a film “Along the Great Divide”, starring Kirk Douglas and Virginia Mayo from 1951. (I have not seen this movie. I’m hoping to view it soon. Finding it is the issue.) However, the fact the script is second-hand doesn’t diminish the storytelling quality of the hour-long translation for television. The script and pacing in this episode are tight and fast. No fluff dialog. The characters are solid, and Nature has a role to play in this episode, as it should in any quality Western story. There is the popular argument out there that the archetypal “good guy” character is boring and one-dimensional, but I would argue that Cheyenne as a character is anything but boring. (See another season one episode, Rendezvous at Red Rock for further example.) Cheyenne becomes the moral pillar of the ensemble, the steady rock unaffected by the current of the world. The other characters either smash against him and sink to the depths, or slide into the wake carved out by his presence. But how did he get to this point? *Cheyenne has a definite character arc in this episode. In the first half of the episode, he’s no a gold-plated hero. Cowboy chivalry be damned; Cheyenne is certainly willing to rub stinging liniment into Mary Keith’s wounds to compel her to confess of her self mutilation. He voices doubts in the justice system before and after Mary describes the biased jury that her father will likely face if he’s brought in. *Len Merrick’s death is the catalyst for his move from flesh to stone. This progression begins with the conversation Cheyenne has with Merrick about the marshal’s faith in the law and climaxes in Cheyenne’s eulogy for him at his graveside. It is evident that Cheyenne adopts as his own both Merrick’s attitude toward the law and task of bringing in Pop Keith alive. These are the final things he can do in tribute to a man he admired. *One-dimensional heroes are portrayed without weaknesses, but Cheyenne certainly has his share. After staying awake for three days policing his prisoners, he admits to Mary (after nearly falling asleep on her shoulder) that he won’t make it much further without sleep and water. *Watch the desert scene after Pop Keith shoots Lou. The stone-faced, towering Cheyenne standing at Merrick’s graveside is replaced by a physically exhausted deputy with stalwart words in his mouth but uncertainty in his eyes about the straight and narrow path he’s taking. That’s a great piece of acting, Mr. Walker. There is drama created in how the other characters react to Cheyenne as the moral force propelling this ragtag group forward: *Pop Keith certainly couldn’t bring himself to shoot the virtuous Cheyenne when he had the opportunity, but he had no qualms about killing Lou the traitor. Who would you want traveling with your daughter, a traitor or a man of his word? *Mary Keith expends her energy trying to escape through self-inflicted injury, and trying to pull a gun on her father’s captors no less than four times! Later, she’s the one standing over Cheyenne’s unconscious body to keep her father from shooting him. The shame from her Judas kiss, concern for her father’s soul and Cheyenne’s resolute example motivate her to stand against her father here -- the man she’s been trying to help escape for three days. *Dan Roden acts as the devil on everyone’s shoulder prompting them toward evil, except for Bodie, with whom he doesn’t even try. Is it any wonder he’s the first to succumb to madness brought on by the desert sun (Nature playing a role), or maybe a rotten conscience, or feeling the guilt of Cain? His maniacal raving at the oasis suggests a combination of all three. *As the twist-in-the-wind deputy, Lou Gray is exactly as Merrick describes him: a gun, a force of indiscriminate violence and self-interest. We get insight into that when he amusedly eggs on the fight between Pop and Roden. He’s the thinnest of the characters. Lou's decision to turn on Cheyenne after his refusal to seek another source of water seems reasonable enough, but his quick alliance with Roden is self-serving and despicable. The "who done it" thread lies under the main plot as a tasty trail of breadcrumbs throughout: who murdered Ed Roden, Jr.? The clue to the real killer is in Cheyenne’s hands for most of the episode, but he (and we) don’t know it until the end. The episode certainly would be satisfying even if we never found out who killed Roden the Younger, but then we’d miss the tragic justice that Roden the Elder metes out at the final scene. Overall, this episode is certainly one of my favorites in Season One, and of the series as a whole. Category:Blog posts